An Earthly Child
by amitai
Summary: Doctor WhoAlex Rider crossover. During a mission that's getting increasingly weird, Alex meets an even weirder stranger. The Doctor, mourning an old companion, meets a strange boy. The Doctor, plus Alex? Good Lord. NOW OFF HIATUS!
1. Chapter 1

Well, technically, my idea, so my fault, but, it's she has put a lot into this - more than I have, in many, many ways. She researched it, and she helped me bash out the ideas; in fact, she CAME UP with a lot of the ideas. Without her it would never have been written.

I'm starting to think I should just dedicate all my stories to her. It'd be quicker, and easier!

Anyway, to those of you who don't watch Doctor Who, do it. Because David Tennant is amazing.

Sorry, rabid fangirlness just slightly got in the way of my sanity there. What I MEANT to say, was, don't worry, the Doctor Who stuff in the story is going to have to be explained for Alex's benefit, anyway, so nothing is going to remain a mystery forever; it will all be explained eventually. Obviously, not all of it will be explained immediately, because that would ruin the plot, but, nothing will stay a mystery forever. I promise.

DISCLAIMER: I own neither Alex Rider, nor any part of Doctor Who. Though, y'know, if anyone wants to give me David Tennant for Christmas...

* * *

**Chapter 1**

In the end, he'd done it. Rose had been in another universe, and he'd burnt up stars to say goodbye, crossed the barriers of reality to talk to her one last time, and had also, incidentally, saved the human race again, as a sort of after thought.

But that had been and gone, it had happened, in his past, and maybe in the future of whenever he was now, but it had happened, and he was tired. Between trying to find a supernova in order to have the energy to slide through that final, closing fault line between the universes, and saving the world from the Racnoss, with the very vocal help of Donna, he'd had no time to come to terms with the loss of Rose. Normally, he would have worked through it, distracted himself for long enough that the pain stopped being at the forefront of his mind every minute of most days; but Rose deserved more than that. He owed her – and, he sometimes thought, himself – the honour, or the luxury, of grieving over what he'd lost.

For once in his life, he wanted peace. He hated feeling vulnerable, and he felt it now; like someone had taken him and turned him inside out, putting everything that was the most precious and secret to him, and exposing it to the world, and he wanted peace, to heal. Rose had been something special to him, and he needed to get over losing her.

He wanted peace. A few days, at least, maybe a couple of weeks; hell, he probably had a couple of years to spare, but he wanted peace.

He got twenty five minutes.

* * *

The TARDIS shuddered gently as it materialised with it's usual whooshing sigh. At least with this journey, the Doctor knew that nothing could have gone wrong – he wanted peace, and his ship was also mourning Rose, in her own way. They both needed some peace and quiet. He wasn't about to step out into some war-zone, because his ship had hijacked him, deciding that he was 'needed' there.

Opening the door onto an impossibly quiet forest clearing, somewhere, some time, in England, he sighed. Peace.

* * *

After sitting in the tiny clearing for about ten minutes, the Doctor – who wasn't really designed to endure long periods of inaction – stood up, brushed himself off, and walked off, purposefully, with no real direction, just deciding to explore his surroundings a little. After all, it wasn't like he had to worry about losing the TARDIS; he was connected to it inside his head, so if he got really lost, she could guide him back.

He walked for maybe fifteen minutes, when a loud, hollow clunking sound caught his attention; whirling round, in the direction the sound seemed to have come, he frowned, lightly.

"That sounded – close." He said, thoughtfully, to himself.

Someone burst into the clearing behind him, and he spun to face him, immediately on his guard. The boy – whoever he was, blond, not tall, but not pathetically short, either, athletic-looking, maybe eighteen or nineteen – stopped for a second, his eyes going wide as they landed on him.

"Hallo!" the Doctor said, cheerfully. "What's going on here, then?"

The boy just nodded at him, apparently too breathless to speak and too preoccupied to be fazed by him, glancing over his shoulder anxiously. He panted for a couple of seconds more, seemingly trying to get his breath back, and finally opened his mouth to say something, when a metallic clunking sound behind him made him start slightly, and the Doctor looked behind him, trying to work out what it was.

"Well, _that_ didn't sound normal." He said, thoughtfully. "Care to explain?"

"Not really." The boy panted out, finally. "I-I really… don't think it's… a good idea to wait here... Whatever those _things _are, they're….they're really not all that… friendly."

The Doctor reached for his sonic screwdriver, watching as another clunk made the boy flinch almost imperceptibly. He had to hand it to the kid – he was dealing with his fear far better than he, the Doctor, would have expected from someone so – young. Somewhere, not too far off, a tree fell, with a whistling 'thud'. The boy, whoever he was, looked at him, questioningly. The Doctor looked back at him, meeting his eyes for a second. There was no overt fright in the brown eyes that met his own; they were wary and anxious, unquestionably, but there was no terror, no blind panic. Whoever this boy was, he was used to dealing with fear.

_Interesting_, he thought, but filed the thought away for later examination, as an even nearer 'thud' reached his ears.

"We should probably be going." The boy had at least slightly caught his breath by now; enough that he could get his sentences out relatively fluently. He glanced back into the trees again – the Doctor saw a bloody lump on the back of his head, and frowned. The kid shouldn't be able to run. He should have been unconscious. But then, maybe he'd just come round, or something similar. There were all sorts of logical explanations.

"Don't worry." He said, finally. The boy raised an eyebrow at him, and he grinned lopsidedly, twirling his sonic screwdriver in one hand. "We should be safe, with this. They're machines, right?"

"How did you…?"

"They sound like machines. Big machines, if I'm right." He paused, as another, even closer-sounding 'thunk' reached his ears. They couldn't be more than a few metres away by now. "About six foot?" He glanced at the boy, who nodded. "But not, I think, human shape."

"No, they're all – rounded, I guess, plastic, and… but they don't break like normal plastic." He took a deep breath. "I've never seen anything like them."

"You wouldn't have." The Doctor murmured. "Don't worry."

"Oh, right then, I won't." The boy muttered. "Random stranger armed with an oversized metal pencil tells me not to worry about the huge murderous machines, I'll just do exactly that."

The Doctor spared him a quick grin, and then the metal creatures were appearing, and there was no time for anything else.

"Wow." He said, properly awed. "They're – they're quite something."

"Yeah, they're also quite trying to kill us." The kid – whoever he was – said, sharply. "Now would be the time to produce something a little more effective than what you've got there."

"This?" he said, gesturing with the screwdriver. "Works a treat. Use this on anything – locks, machines, whatever."

"Yeah?" he turned his head – the Doctor couldn't tell whether he was planning to run, or just checking behind, but had he been asked, he'd have gone for the first one. "Then, use it. Please. Quickly, preferably, there are more coming."

"Well, only if you insist." He said, with one of his trademark wild grins.

With a burst of sonic blue, the screwdriver put paid to the immediate problems; and the boy walked over to one of the now-lifeless fallen machines, squatting down to look at it. The Doctor watched as a frown appeared on the young face, and the boy said, with a faint tone of confusion in his voice,

"This is no human machinery like I've ever seen."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at him. The answer to that was so obvious, it almost hurt to say it. "Well, maybe you haven't seen much machinery."

The boy shot him an annoyed look, and said, shortly. "Maybe. But, look here." He pointed to something within the clear plastic-like substance which cased some sort of tracking device, obviously designed so that the machines could be programmed to follow something – or someone. "This is what they must have used to track me, you can tell it's a tracking device," the Doctor took a couple of seconds to be impressed; apparently he'd underestimated the kid, if he could recognise a tracking device that easily, when it wasn't even created using human technology, "but a normal tracking device, unless it was controlled by a satellite, would never have been able to track me in a forest like this."

"Why couldn't it be controlled by satellite?"

"It hasn't got the right parts. Plus, I've got nothing on me that they could track." He said, absently, his mind obviously somewhere else, still staring down at the robotic creature at his feet. "Normal tracking devices like this one – well, to say that we don't have anything like it is an understatement. Without putting something electronic on me, to track, or to draw these things by some sort of signal or pulse, they wouldn't have been able to track me except by sonar, maybe – and the forest would destroy that as an idea, and I know for a fact that they didn't put anything electronic on me." He bit his lip for a second, then said, slowly. "The only idea I can come up with is that it must have – well, it must have either _seen_ me… or _smelt_ me. But – it's a machine." He shrugged, standing up with a grunt as he stretched his legs.

"Then, I guess you're just going to have to assume that it's not man-made." The Doctor said, quietly.

"I guess I am." The Doctor opened his mouth to continue, but the boy held up a hand. "Give me a second, please." He said, eyes thoughtful as he looked at the man. "Because, it's a lot to take in, OK? And, please bear in mind that I'm only tentatively accepting this, until I can find something else that disproves it. Right now, I'm not sure I have time to argue the point with you." He paused. "So, who are you, anyway?"

"I'm the Doctor." He looked the kid up and down as he answered. There was something – _different –_ about him.

"_Just_ the Doctor, I assume?" A lopsided, humourless grin accompanied the words.

"Just the Doctor." He agreed companionably. "You?"

"Alex."

"That'd be_ just_ Alex, then."

"For the moment, yeah." The boy glanced back the way he'd come. "Look, I've got to go, OK? Thanks for your help, and everything…"

"You're going to go back there?" The Doctor was surprised – something that only happened very rarely. He'd never known a human willing to go back into something like this – at least, not without him.

"I've got to get back home." The lie was said without pause, or much thought, even, as if it was totally true, and the brown eyes met his, but the Doctor could read the lie in those eyes nonetheless.

"Right." He said, companionably. "Well, d'you mind if I got along with you?" he was a little reluctant to let the boy go on his own. He was, after all, only about eighteen or nineteen.

_Rose's age_, a little voice reminded him, but he ignored it. After all, that had nothing to do with it.

The boy shrugged. "Yeah, sure, if you like." The Doctor almost applauded. This boy was a master at this – try to put someone off obviously, and they'd just get more determined to come with you; and he couldn't be too eager for the Doctor to come with him. It was a lie, after all. But, being indifferent – well, indifference was the quickest way to shake someone.

He walked over to the place where the boy had entered the clearing, cocked his head, and said, smiling lopsidedly, "Well? Are we go…"

He didn't get a chance to finish the sentence, as something hit him on the head, hard. He had a moment – literally a second – to wonder whether it was something the boy had thrown, or whether someone had sneaked up on him, so disorientated by the blow that he couldn't tell where he'd been hit. Then, his vision was swimming, and a frightening black blankness seemed to come down over his thoughts. His eyes shut; his last sight was the boy, grabbed by another one of these metal creatures.

He shouldn't have forgotten that there are usually back up troops.

* * *

Alex had been surprised to find into someone in the middle of a wood he knew was generally deserted – and doubly surprised to find that he'd managed to 'bump into' one of the few people who could actually help him. This man – The Doctor, whatever that was supposed to mean, possibly some sort of codename, just as 'Cub', or 'Wolf' were codenames – spoke perfect English, so Alex assumed he must be English, but after the incident with the pencil thing, he wasn't so sure – especially after the man had been so willing to believe that the machines which had been chasing him weren't human.

He'd have been lying if he said that he hadn't thought the same thing himself – but he'd thought maybe that was the childish side of him coming out to play. He was, after all, fourteen, and most fourteen year olds were allowed to be a little fanciful about these things. But logically, he knew it wasn't possible. So, until this admittedly rather strange man repeated what he'd been thinking, he passed the thought off as fancifulness, and tried to think which country could have developed something so advanced.

But then, the incident with the pencil-like object, whatever that was, convinced him that there was something very strange going on here, and it was as likely to be aliens as anything else. The brief glimpses he'd caught of the 'people' running around the underground base he'd managed to infiltrate had given him some suspicions, but nothing concrete; maybe this was all going to add up into something much bigger and weirder than he'd ever experienced before.

Which, after all he'd been through, was really saying something.

Alex had watched, in stunned horror, as this Doctor person was hit by another of the machines, dropping his pencil-weapon; his reactions were dulled by shock, but he managed to start forward, a couple of seconds too late, to try and help the man.

Looking back on it, it was that that saved his life. He had gone forwards and slightly to the side, which was the where the man had been standing. So the blow which had been meant for his head actually hit his shoulder. The force it hit him with made his vision blank out with pain for a couple of seconds, and he stumbled, and was grabbed by this second machine thing.

He felt a brief surge of triumph. Obviously these creatures, whatever they were, couldn't _see_ him; they must have been able to 'smell' him, or something like that, or they would have known that he was still conscious. Making a split-second decision, he decided the best thing to do was to 'play dead'; that way, he could hopefully buy enough time to get out of whichever prison they put him in when they got back to that base. If, indeed they were taking him back to the base.

He went limp in the thing's grip, letting one arm trail along the ground, keeping one eye slitted open. _There_.

As they passed it, he managed to grab the metal pencil thing. It might come in handy.

* * *

Alex was thrown in the cell, with no further information as to what was to happen to him. He heard voices talking in some sort of foreign language, but not one that he recognised, nor one which seemed to bear any similarity to anything else that he'd ever heard.

He ignored that for a few minutes, keeping up his unconscious act for several minutes more, until he was sure there was no one coming. Then, he sat up, and pulled the pencil thing out of his sleeve, examining it for a few seconds. On consideration, he thought it looked rather more like a screwdriver than a pencil.

For a few seconds, he weighed it in his hand, thinking. That, there, looked like a button; maybe that would turn it on.

He pressed it; nothing happened. Remembering the torches he'd had as a kid, he tried sliding his thumb behind it, and pushing it forwards, and was rewarded, but a blue light, and a low humming noise. Quickly, he turned it off. He didn't want it to run out of battery, and the noise might bring someone. He doubted it, but he didn't fancy taking his chances with the machines again.

Speculatively, he eyed the door, then looked back down at the screwdriver. The Doctor, whoever he was, _had_ said it would work on locks, after all…

Alex crept over to the door, and placed the screwdriver thing next to the lock, sliding the button until the blue light appeared again. The door vibrated, ominously, but nothing much else happened. Worried that this noise would bring someone, even if the relatively quiet noise of the screwdriver didn't, he flicked it off again, returning to sit against the wall.

For a few moments, he examined the screwdriver more closely, and eventually found that the ring around the top twisted. Maybe this thing had different settings…?

He twisted the ring until it would go no further, and tested it against the ground.

The blue light was blinding, and the piece of ground exploded silently – it was, after all, only soil – showering Alex with dirt.

"Maybe not…" he murmured, frowning, turning the ring again, this time right down. The light was dimmer now, and when he held it near the ground, nothing happened.

Deciding to test his luck again, he went back to the door, and tried it. Hearing the 'click' of the lock opening, he pushed the door open, and looked down the corridor.

No guards. Obviously, they weren't holding many people down here.

He'd seen them take the man into a room a few doors along for his; as silently as he could, he crept towards it.

* * *

The Doctor woke to someone shaking him, lay there for a few seconds, trying to remember what had happened, and where he was, then sat up, with a jerk.

"You're… Alex, right?" he asked, of the pale, dirt-smudged face that met his probing gaze with calm brown eyes.

"Yes." The boy nodded. "And you might want your screwdriver thing back."

Something was pressed into his hand, and he instinctively closed his hand around the sonic screwdriver, warm from being kept in the boy's hand.

"How did you know it was a screwdriver?" he asked, casually, thinking fast. Torchwood might have known about the sonic screwdriver. And if this kid was from Torchwood – after all, he didn't know when he'd landed, so Torchwood could still be up and running, for all he knew – if this kid was working for them, the people who'd got Rose killed, or at least, put into that alternate universe, he didn't know if he could keep himself from trying to hurt him.

"Looks like one." The kid shrugged, and there was no trace of a lie in his face this time – nothing that rang false in the Doctor's mind. "Look, they put you in one of their machines." he saw the Doctor's face. "Not the one of their strange soldier-machines! Something different – I've seen them do it before, with this one guy near where I'm staying…"

"I thought you lived here?"

"I'm staying with my uncle, I've had flu." The boy snapped, obviously irritated at being interrupted.

"You're not acting like you're recuperating." The Doctor pointed out, calmly.

"I've been here two weeks, of course I'm not. I'm bored stiff – or I was – and I want to go home. Can we get back to the point?" The Doctor nodded, ironically. "Thank you. This machine of theirs – it… it distorts people's minds, somehow. Makes them crazy."

"'Crazy' how?" he asked, quickly. This was starting to sound very, very bad.

"Crazy like they start worshipping these people."

"Right." He thought for a couple of seconds. "What do they call them? These 'people'? Do they ever name them?"

"Not that I've ever heard." Even in the semi-darkness of his cell, the Doctor could see the boy's shrug. "But – you're acting pretty normal. And they must have tried to – do whatever it is they do – to you."

"If it disrupts human brain patterns, it won't affect mine." The Doctor murmured, still thinking. If this was what he thought it was – they were going to need help. Much more help than they had at the moment. But, the machines, that was the problem. Unless they could destroy the machines, all the help on Earth, and, more to the point, all the fire power would be useless. But, if it _was_ what he thought it was, there was one chance… "My brain works on different wavelengths to yours."

"I don't even want to know why that is." The boy stood up, and offered him a hand. "You're going to be pretty unsteady…" he warned.

The Doctor swayed, slightly. "Yeah. Thanks for that." He grinned suddenly. "I think you'd better take me to have a look at this mystery machine of theirs."

The boy led him down the earthy corridor to a door only a few rooms down from his own cell, and pushed it open.

"This is it?"

"Yeah."

"And, they don't lock the doors?" _That_ would be typical behaviour for the people he thought were behind all this.

"Well, they did." The boy shifted slightly. "But you said that thing of yours could work on locks, so I…"

"You got the sonic screwdriver to work?" The doctor raised his eyebrows, looking down at the little probe. "Well…" he took a deep breath, "That's a first. Well, a first for someone who hasn't been told how to use it. Now, this machine…"

He stepped over to it. It was a strange looking thing, some sort of silvery metal, which bore a distinct similarity to brushed steel, but, when looked at from a certain angle, held the same weird sheen as an oil slick – blues and purples, and oranges would dance over it. It was, as most things had been today, unlike anything Alex had ever seen.

In other respects, it looked a lot like an MRI scanner, without the padding that went with something so civilized. It was simply a ring of metal, with a sort of metal plank, about six feet long, inside it. On the side was a metal box, with various buttons on, and a sigil, or seal, of some sort stamped on it. It was this box that the Doctor bent down to look closer. The sonic screwdriver was played over it, beeping occasionally. Finally, the beeping sped up, until it was almost one high, constant note.

"Ahah!" the Doctor said, triumphantly. "Gotcha. Now, just to check one more thing." He turned back to Alex. "Check something for me, would you?"

"Sure…"

"Look inside this thing, would you?" With a suspicious look, Alex ducked his head inside the metal ring. "Can you see the current in the metal?"

Alex frowned, pulling back out. "I don't know. What does 'the current' look like?"

The Doctor sighed, apparently with irritation. "Probably a sort of blue line, maybe in circles. Can you see that in the metal?"

Alex glanced back inside the machine again. "Yep." He looked back at the Doctor. "Why?"

"Because if you can see the current being passed through it, then it means that that metal," the man had obviously forgotten about Alex, and was gazing off into the distance, a thoughtful frown on his face. "That metal is Thirolium. And Thirolium is only found in one place – it's very specialised metal. Iron, copper, silver, gold, you'll find them anywhere – though," he mused, absently, "Earth is the only place where you can find Rutherfordium, prob'ly because everywhere else just calls it Ank. Anyway, yes. Thirolium."

He didn't seem inclined to continue, and Alex said, impatiently. "What about this Thirolium stuff? Where's it from? What's it do?"

"It gives off a – look, it's complicated." The Doctor said, shaking himself, and drawing his eyes back to Alex's.

Alex frowned. "Try me." He said, flatly.

The Doctor met his eyes squarely, then said, slowly, " It uses a specialised sort of wave to alter the thought processes; it changes – normally lowers – the frequency of your brain waves, makes you – quieter, more docile." He looked back down at the machine, and said, rather absently, "The metal itself is from Lehr – which means, that these are probably Lyorans. They're experts at this sort of thing."

"These creatures are… 'Lyorans', was it?"

"Yes."

"So – they're alien."

"Yes."

Alex thought about it for a couple of seconds before saying, carefully, "So – are they good aliens, or bad aliens?"

The Doctor gave him a sharp look, before replying, lightly, "Pretty bad, yeah. Arrogant bunch, the Lyorans – arrogant, but far from stupid. Mind you, it does works in our favour, to a certain extent." At Alex's slightly confused look, he clarified, "They won't be expecting anything less than an army to be able to do them any damage." Alex nodded, and stood watching silently, while the Doctor checked the machine over again. Finally, he straightened, and looked back at Alex. "So, this machine – do you know if they've got any others?"

"I don't think so. I don't know, though, they might have." He shrugged.

"Right. Well, we'll get rid of this one, and hope for the best." Alex watched as the Doctor turned the setting of the screwdriver up. The man grinned at him, suddenly. "You might want to stand back."

He flicked the button forward, and pointed it at the box. After a couple of seconds, there was a loud, metallic clunk, and after a few seconds, the outside shell crumpled inwards, denting the main ring of the machine. The Doctor stepped back, with a satisfied smirk.

"Well, that's that dealt with. Now, we've got to get out of this place. Quietly." Before he'd even finished saying it, an alarm blared through the corridor, making Alex jump. The Doctor glanced at him, quirked his lips into a small smile, shrugged and said, "Maybe quiet isn't quite so important?"

"Yeah. Maybe not." Alex agreed, and the pair of them ran for it.

* * *

So. There you have it. What d'you think?

Just to warn you - this is likely to turn into a sprawling epic of Doctor-Alex-ness. It's going to be a fun ride, folks. Hop aboard!

Lol, ami. xxx


	2. Chapter 2

Ahah! So, this is newly and shinily redone, and it's MUCH better now. Thanks, as always, to Von, who is very patient with me, and listens to me whining on about these things. (hugs) Thanks, hon!

And, of course, thanks to all the amazing readers and reviewers out there - you are all lovely!

Of course, now AS Levels are over, I might be able to actually - (gasp) - update things! Look for updates int a coupla days, folks!

...oh, who am I kidding? No one's reading this right now. :D

DISCLAIMER: David Tennant isn't for sale.

D'oh! I mean - ahem. Yes. Right. I own neither the Alex Rider series, nor the Doctor Who series. But, they're both on my birthday list. :-P

* * *

They ran to the end of the corridor, both of them straining their ears to hear any sounds of the robotic guards coming after them – nothing. None of the clunking 'thuds' which marked the approach of the clumsy machines. There _were_ footsteps, however; when they reached the end of the corridor, the Doctor grabbed Alex's hand, and pulled him left. Alex allowed himself be tugged into the tiny storage cupboard, and let the Doctor sonic the door shut.

Once that was done, though, he whispered, so quietly that his voice wouldn't have been audible to anyone who wasn't standing as close to him as the Doctor,

"So – what the hell are we doing here?"

"Investigating, stealth-style." The Doctor murmured back, at the same volume. "You said yourself that they make people 'crazy'. We can't let them do that to the whole world, now can we?"

"They couldn't…"

"They could." The Doctor told him, nearly silent, but firm. "And there were people coming after us. With any luck, they'll start talking near this room; the Lyorans wouldn't even begin to consider that we might hide, rather than run away. If not – we'll try our luck somewhere else in this rabbit warren. Now, quiet."

Alex subsided, seeing the wisdom of the command, even if he wanted to argue. They waited, in silence, for about a minute, when Alex began to hear voices approaching. He strained his ears to hear what was being said.

"…escaped. Must have had outside help."

"Typical Lyorans." Alex could hear the grin in the Doctor's voice. "Arrogant as ever – we couldn't have _possibly_ done this by ourselves, after all…"

"What are we going to do now?" Another voice asked. "After all, we've got to find them, or they could ruin our plan… If they alerted anyone to our presence…"

"We will find them." There was a pause, and Alex fought the urge to shift inside their tiny cupboard, knowing that any noise could alert the aliens out there to their presence. "In fact, Intelligence Unit has just told me that they're nearby." He felt the Doctor – whoever he was – tense next to him. "In that supply cupboard, in fact."

They didn't have time to try and escape again, before the door was yanked open, and they came face to face with two of the ugliest beings Alex had ever seen.

They both had the same colour eyes – a bright, piercing blue – and they were vaguely humanoid in shape, it was true – but they seemed… elongated. Their heads were more oval than round, and it had stretched their eyes until they were enormous. Instead of skin, they seemed to have just plain bone covering what would otherwise surely have been a paper thin skull, and this hard bone – shell, Alex supposed would be the right word – snaked round their eyes like weird, deformed glasses, or a super-hero mask made of bone, covering the eyes and the forehead, and nothing else, leaving the rest of the face as 'normal' flesh. Except, it wasn't normal. It was a pasty white – the colour of a corpse's skin, and it hung loosely on them, as if it were a size too big. Despite their rather wasted appearance, their grip on Alex was painfully, impossibly tight, as they dragged him and the Doctor from the supply cupboard.

The Doctor didn't struggle as Alex did, but he did talk very fast. "There're a couple of very good reasons why you should let us go." He said, quickly, as they were half-carried along the corridors. "One…"

"What is your name, human?" The tall alien – Lyoran? – dragging the Doctor asked, voice flat.

"I'm the Doctor. And I think 'human' is just a _little_ inacc…"

"You will be silent." The alien said, impassively.

The Doctor paused. "Well, alright, but I really think you should lis…"

He didn't get a chance to finish the sentence, as they were pushed into a large, vaulted chamber, which, unlike the other rooms, appeared to have been covered with metal, sheeted, into a huge, domed room. The doors were also remarkably high-tech, metal sliding doors, rather than the simple wooden ones which were everywhere else.

"So, that's what happened to your space ship." The Doctor murmured. "You hit the ground with such force, it was almost completely buried." He frowned. "How did you hide the earth quake you caused?"

"Your race said it was a natural phenomenon. An Earth Quake, as you just called it." The Lyoran carrying Alex told him. "You are always so eager to explain away that which you cannot understand."

"Humans, eh." The Doctor agreed, equably. "So, what are you going to do n-aaah!" he was taken over to a machine which looked uncomfortably similar to the one they'd just destroyed, the last tiny bit of his sentence snatched out of his mouth as he was jerked over.

"The psychotransis did not work on you with our other machine." A new voice, raspier, but no less emotionless, said, softly, from one corner of the room. "We will have to try with this one. That one was weakened, to allow you humans to still be able to function; this one is not. It might work on you." It paused, apparently about to say something, when the Doctor interrupted.

"Hang on, 'psychotransis'?" he frowned. "You're using psychotransis on these humans? That sort of technology is banned on every civilised planet, _including _Lehr. Come to that, the use of Thirolium for any purpose that isn't medicinal is banned everywhere, too, and what you're doing here is _certainly_ not medicinal."

The Lyoran ignored him. "Put him in." he ordered the creature holding the Doctor.

The man – or whatever he was – struggled viciously against it's hold, as it attempted to put him inside the machine. "I'm telling you, it _won't work_!" he said, firmly. "You don't know the frequency my brainwaves work on! No one does!"

A slight gesture from the alien who seemed to be in charge, and the creature stopped. "You will tell us the correct frequency, then."

"I _can't_." he said, sounding frustrated. "I don't know myself. It's not like I ever sat down and thought to myself 'ooh, today would be a good day to work out what frequency my brain works at'!"

The Lyoran frowned – or, at least, Alex assumed that it did. "We have no reason to believe you." It said, flatly. "Put him in." it gestured at the alien holding the Doctor, who resumed its inexorable progress towards the machine.

The Doctor just sighed, and allowed himself to be strapped in. "It's not going to work." He observed, again, sounding tired, and slightly irritated.

The aliens ignored him, one of them typing in some sort of code, on the side of the machine, and then pressed something, standing back from it. The machine started to hum, and Alex could feel some sort of charge, or possibly static, from the thing, as it started up, a weird blue glow coming from inside of the metal tube where the Doctor was strapped.

Even a few metres away from the thing, Alex shivered. It felt – wrong. His skin was prickling, uncomfortably, and his head was starting to throb painfully. Whatever this machine was designed to do – alter brain waves, or whatever – it was nasty. Wrong in some way.

Alex could only hope that the Doctor was going to be OK, because, for once, he, personally, had no idea how to deal with this situation.

The Lyorans left the machine on for what felt like forever, but finally one of them flicked it off. For a couple of seconds, there was silence, and Alex tensed – and then the Doctor said, quietly,

"I did warn you that it wouldn't work."

Alex let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, and the alien which appeared to be in charge pursed it's lips – which was apparently as near to a frown as it could get.

"It should have worked on you, human." It spat, as the Doctor was let out of the straps.

"If you'd let me explain," The Doctor began, as he was shoved away from the machine, "I'm not…"

"It is immaterial." The creature snapped at him. "We will try with your companion. It might work on him." It glared at the Doctor. "And then we will work out what to do with you."

"He's not my companion, and he's too young." The Doctor said, quickly, as Alex was dragged, resisting furiously, over to the machine. "If you put him in there, with it on full strength, you'll fry his brain!"

"Yeah, I feel really reassured now." Alex muttered, as he passed the man. His eyes, wide and dark and angry, met Alex's.

"I'm sorry." He murmured. "I'm so sorry."

Alex made to reply, but had no time to do so, before he was shoved into the machine, and strapped down. He struggled, futilely, against the straps holding him down, and heard the creatures discussing the strength to put the machine on, and the Doctor still protesting violently, though all the voices echoed weirdly inside the metal tube he was in.

The machine started humming, and then the interlocking blue circles began to appear, apparently the conduction lines of some sort of power, which was being put through the metal. The air around him started to vibrate; it felt like something was pushing in on his brain. Dimly, he could feel himself pushing back against it, forcing it out of his mind – he lost all track of time, lost in the battle he was sure he was losing, between him and the machine…

And then, it stopped. Alex collapsed limply on the metal sheet, muscles spasming weakly, his nerves on fire. Tentatively, he posed himself a few questions, inside his own head, though it hurt even just to think…he still knew his name. He knew where he was. He remembered everything.

He was alright. Everything was normal – just painful.

The Doctor's voice penetrated the pain-induced haze. "You just killed him." His voice was accusatory. Alex shook his head, though that set off an explosion, and he winced, trying to overcome the side effects of what was, he was sure, the worst head ache in the history of mankind.

"'M not dead." He croaked.

There was a moment of intense silence, and then one of the aliens appeared at the mouth of the machine.

"And what do you think of us?" it asked, quietly.

Alex told it exactly what he thought of it, using every single word he'd learnt during his time with the SAS, and several different languages.

"His neural passages haven't settled down yet." The Doctor told the aliens, and even Alex could hear the smugness in his voice, though he was certain he also heard a trace of surprise – which wasn't all that odd, since the man had seemed so convinced that this machine would send him mad. "You can't alter his brain when his thought patterns aren't fixed."

"If he is useless, he will be disposed of." The voice was cool and calm, and if Alex had been any other kid, he would have been scared, but as it was, he was just tired and in pain, and he couldn't be bothered to get worked up about it.

Alex was uncuffed from the machine, and dragged out, trying not to sway, as he was shoved onto his feet. The Doctor looked at him, concernedly, a rather puzzled expression on his face, as Alex stood, trying to get his balance back, and trying to gain some sort of focus on the world around him.

It was surprisingly difficult.

One of the aliens grabbed Alex, holding him upright, and Alex was almost grateful for it. The Doctor, by contrast, had been let go, and was just standing there. Alex would have advised him to run, if he'd been able to find the right words.

"So…" the man started, his voice soft, but somehow even more threatening than it had been when he was shouting. "What are you going to do now, hmm? Now that you've finished messing around inside an innocent boy's brain, what are you going to try next? How long did it take you to build that machine, down there," he pointed out in the general direction they'd come in, "And how long did it take you to work out that that machine," he pointed at the one in front of him, "Was too strong? How many people did you send mad? How many did you kill?"

"There are humans to spare." The voice was cold now.

Alex knew there was something wrong with that statement, but the world felt fuzzy around him. Dimly, he realised that he was at least half-way unconscious, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care. It was all he could manage not to slide the rest of the way into unconsciousness.

"No, there aren't." The Doctor contradicted him, flatly. There was an off-note in his voice, though Alex couldn't quite pin point it; something that said the man was speaking from experience maybe? "They all meant something to someone. You didn't just ruin their lives, you ruined their family's lives as well; humans aren't like Lyorans. They actually feel something for each other."

"We feel."

"You don't feel anything but arrogance and greed and fear for your own safe-satisfied little lives." The Doctor told him, voice harsh. He slid a hand into the inside of his jacket, fishing around for that pencil thing of his – what had he called it? The sonic screwdriver? Whatever it was. It had destroyed that thing before – that other machine.

Gaining a dim understanding of what the man was doing, Alex tried to wake himself up, tried to disengage the pain, or at least find something to focus on so he could ignore it. As he tried, he could almost feel it becoming less, being squeezed into the back of his mind, by the determination to stay awake, to stay conscious and with it, to hold it together.

"And I bet you haven't felt fear since you got to Earth." The Doctor continued, voice dropping even further in volume. "I bet you haven't been afraid for a long, long time. How long have you been here, anyway?"

"Why should we fear the humans?" The Lyoran who seemed to be in charge asked, blandly. "Why should wee feel an sort of fear towards such weak, pathetic creatures?" It paused. "We have been here a nearly one of their years, and we have faced no threat."

"Well then." The Doctor allowed himself a small, threatening grin. "If you need something to be afraid of, you can be afraid of me. Because I'm not going to let you go any further with any of this."

Alex watched as he walked casually over to the machine, making a show of examining it, checking it over, casually.

"So, the Thirolium is thicker on this one, and the current is…" he broke off, and looked up at the nearest alien. "You had this on the highest setting!" He glared, hotly at it. "He's just a kid, what the hell were you thinking, putting it that high?!"

"Tha''s bad, righ'?" Alex managed to get out.

The Doctor looked at him. "You should be dead." He told him, quietly. "That sort of current should have killed you. It should have fried your neurons, and made it impossible for you to think, then frozen all your nerves, till you couldn't feel anything, and then it should have disrupted the electrical impulses in your heart, and forced you into a heart attack, which would have killed you."

Alex shuddered. "Right."

"But, now." He pressed the sonic screwdriver to a certain place, and pressed the button, smiling sweetly at the Lyorans as he did so. "You're going to have to start from scratch, I'm afraid."

One of the Lyorans obviously suddenly got what he was doing, starting towards him, as the machine exploded.

* * *

In the resulting confusion, Alex felt a very human-feeling hand grab his own, and pull. "Run!" The Doctor's voice hissed in his ear, and Alex stumbled with him, out of the metal sliding doors, and towards – whatever it was. Alex was literally on auto-pilot, the pain in his head too bad to ignore, but too dangerous to give in to. For the moment, he was just doing as well as he could, forcing himself to run after the Doctor, clinging to the man's hand as he was pulled along behind him.

The man was muttering instructions to himself, things like 'turn right here, take a left turn there, right, left, all the way along that corridor…' They skidded to a halt, and dimly, Alex recognised voices, but nothing very clear. They sounded accusatory, so he assumed that they had been found, but then the Doctor made a sharp left turn, and they continued their flight through the underground base, until suddenly the Doctor stopped again.

He was saying something, but Alex couldn't quite make out the words.

Suddenly, the man slapped him.

"Alex!" he was shouting in his face, as Alex came round, jolted out of his semi-catatonia by the sudden overdose of pain. He whimpered slightly, in too much pain to worry about appearing weak, and the Doctor's stern, worried expression softened. "I'm sorry I had to do that." He apologised, swiftly, "But it's for your own good."

He nodded, beginning to regain a handle on the intense pain in his head. "Yeah."

"I need you to stay with me, OK? If I'm right, if I've got the directions right, I should be able to collapse this wall here…"

"Won't that bring this entire place down?" Alex asked, only half his concentration on the conversation, the other half intent on keeping the pain at bay.

The Doctor grimaced. "Unfortunately not. And even if it did, it wouldn't stop the Lyorans – they'd just retreat to that ship of theirs, go to ground. No, this is an outside wall. They've burrowed too close to the surface; and see here? It's more rock than anything else here." He put his hand to the wall of the dead end passage. "If I aim it here, at the weakest point…" he tapped gently, while Alex watched, part curious, part distracted. "… yes! Just here!"

He smiled, triumphantly, and held the screwdriver to the point he'd just tapped.

The wall cracked from that point, fracturing outwards, and distracted Alex from the noises of someone – or several someones, or possibly somethings – approaching. But, that didn't stop him remembering them.

"Doctor, someone's coming…"

"I know." The man told him, grimly. "Look, Alex, this is going to come out into a quarry." He paused, "You know, I really hate quarries. What is it about your planet, that all the weird, evil aliens that come to it are attracted to quarries?" he shook himself. "Anyway. Yeah, this is going to come out into a quarry of some sort. Possibly granite, from the feel of these walls. We're going to have to climb out of it, OK? We're about half way down here." He looked at Alex, without taking the screwdriver away from the wall. "D'you think you can do that?"

Alex nodded, and the wall collapsed.

Behind them, some of the machines from before clunked around the corner. "Come on, Alex!" The Doctor urged him out. "Just climb, OK? And don't look down."

Alex forced himself to the tiny ledge, and edged sideways, grabbing a hand hold, and clinging to it. It was a huge effort to grab the next ledge, pulling himself up as he did so, and forcing his feet to find ledges to step on, pushing up as far as he could. On the other side of the hole he'd made, the Doctor was doing much the same thing. Alex fought the urge to look down, knowing that he didn't want to see how far he was from the bottom – nor whether the guards had found some way of getting there.

He knew, when some of the stone just above his head exploded, that someone, at least, was down there, shooting up at them with some sort of gun, though it didn't seem to involve bullets of any sort.

The Doctor yelled across at him, "Alex! Don't stop! Keep going, OK? Don't' freeze on me!"

Grimly, Alex forced himself to keep going, though he was falling behind the Doctor by now. He could feel himself tiring, absolutely exhausted – pain overcoming everything again, though he tried to force it back. He was even out of adrenaline, and was tiring fast.

Some more granite exploded, just to the right of him, and he resisted the urge to throw himself left, away from the explosion.

The next shot, however, hit its mark.

His right leg exploded in pain, and, between the thought-numbing agony in his head, the ache in his shoulder, and this sudden fire in his leg, Alex very nearly passed out. It was only the Doctor's scream of,

"Alex!!"

And his own much-exercised survival instinct which kept him hanging on to the ledge, which helped him make the last few metres up the rock face. Then the Doctor grabbed his hand, and pulled him up, dragging him onto the grass, his right leg hanging uselessly, too painful almost to use.

Alex collapsed on the grass, panting in pain and physical exhaustion for a few moments, then, shakily, sat up, and looked at the Doctor.

"What do we do now?" he asked, weakly.

The man looked down at him, face very serious. "Do you think you can walk?" he asked, quietly.

Alex winced just at the thought, but gritted his teeth, and struggled to stand. "Yeah." He said, firmly, and took a couple of steps, trying not to put any weight on his right leg. The pain was incredible, persistent, fiery ache that shot through him every time he put any weight on it; he tried hopping, but found that bending his leg was all but impossible, and that jolting his leg like that was, if possible, even more painful than simply walking on it.

It wasn't long before the pain started to make his head swim, black spots dancing in front of his eyes. The Doctor was striding in front of him, and he wasn't about to say anything to him – he might have just rescued him from an alien stronghold, but he was still a stranger, and almost-absolute self-reliance was a trait MI6 had drilled into him.

He was, in a strange way, grateful for the all-consuming pain he was in. It meant he didn't have to worry about getting his head round the whole 'aliens' issue he was suddenly faced with.

* * *

The Doctor strode off, trusting that the boy would tell him if he needed help. More than anything, he needed to think; no matter what he'd implied to this kid, Alex, he didn't have any concrete way of getting rid of the Lyorans. Frowning to himself, he paused, biting his lip, thinking it over. If things were going his way, just this once, if he had this one advantage, it might just work… stopping, he turned to ask the boy about it, and found that Alex had fallen quite badly behind.

The kid was limping horribly, and mentally, he kicked himself for not expecting him to be holding up badly under this; as a human who'd just undergone an attempted psychotransis on a high setting, and had then been hit with some sort of alien weapon – god only knew what – it was amazing he was still conscious, let alone coherent enough to even attempt walking.

"Here." He said, striding back to the boy, voice rather sharp, though he didn't necessarily mean it to be. "I'll help you."

"I'll be fine." Alex said, through gritted teeth, though it was obvious that his grip on consciousness was tenuous at best. "Just…hurts…"

"I bet it does." The Doctor murmured, before looping an arm around the boy's waist, and slinging Alex's arm over his own – significantly taller – shoulders. It made his own gait a little lopsided, but it was obviously helping Alex. The kid fought it for a bit, but eventually gave in. By the time they reached the TARDIS, the Doctor was practically carrying the boy, whose eyes were half-shut, and rather glazed.

Inside the TARDIS, he laid the kid carefully on the floor, propped up against one of the plant-like pillars, and squatted down next to him. The kid was conscious enough to whimper as he gently touched the way-too-hot skin of his damaged leg, but not conscious enough to protest properly. He hissed in sympathy as he saw the totally smooth skin through the burnt hole in the kid's jeans.

"Long range micro-energizer." He murmured to himself, before standing up and heading over to his extensive first aid kit. "Grinalem… where the hell did I put it…?" he muttered, rummaging through the box, and finally grabbing hold of a rather large green bottle, with a triumphant "Ahah!"

Glancing over at the boy, and frowning a little, he turned back to the box, and spent a few more moments rummaging, before pulling out a small wooden box, which rattled. Checking inside it, he frowned and shrugged, picking one of the pills out for himself, for the headache he'd picked up after the Lyorans had put him in their psychotransitor.

That dealt with, he headed over to the boy, and shook him gently, in an attempt to wake him up from his half-unconscious, half-dozing state. The kid moaned, and whispered,

"Please… don'…."

The Doctor grimaced – he'd forgotten the killer headache the kid would have, after the psychotransis he'd undergone. If _he_, a Time Lord, had a headache, Alex was bound to – though, considering that his brain should have been seeping out of his ears, after the strength he'd endured, he couldn't help but think that the boy had got off lightly. But Alex wasn't likely to agree with him at this particular point.

"Alex." He said, quietly. "I've got painkillers."

Slowly, Alex opened glazed brown eyes, and slurred out, "Where?"

"Here." The Doctor pressed a couple of the pills into his hand. "You won't need water." He added, but he needn't have bothered – Alex had already put the pills in his mouth. The Doctor grinned at the sudden expression of surprise on the boy's face; it was always a shock to humans when those pills turned to liquid as they were swallowed.

The smile slid off his face; Rose had nearly screamed when they did that, the first time he gave one to her for a nasty case of TARDIS sickness.

* * *

By the time the Doctor offered him the 'painkillers', Alex would have taken anything offered to him which would take away the atrocious pain; it was practically blinding him. He couldn't think through the thick fog of pain, and his half-unconsciousness was a huge relief.

All the same, he'd nearly choked when the pills turned to liquid as they hit the back of his mouth. When he looked up at the Doctor, the man was looking – pensive… but as he felt Alex's eyes on his face, he smiled brightly. It didn't reach his eyes.

For a couple of moments, there was a rather awkward silence – then Alex rasped, uncomfortably, "How long before they start to work?"

The Doctor nodded at him. "These? Fastest painkillers in the known universe. Tropmazon (1); should kick in in about five minutes." He handed Alex a green bottle of something, and said, seriously. "Take three swigs of that… you're going to have to rebuild the muscle in your leg. Should only take about three hours, hopefully."

Alex took the bottle, but stared at the Doctor, rather worriedly. "Why do I need to regrow the muscles in my leg?"

The Doctor frowned, standing up, and heading for the consul-like thing in the middle of this room. So far, Alex had been too distracted by the pain, and then by the Doctor, to really take in the room he was in, but he did spare it a quick glance – long enough to be impressed by it, at any rate. He had, for some reason, a vague recollection of a small blue "police box", but that had to be something unrelated, so he dismissed it.

"The Lyorans hit you with a long-range micro-energizer." The Doctor said, shortly.

Alex raised an eyebrow, feeling the pain recede, and beginning to feel a little less fuzzy. "In English?" he asked, quietly.

The Doctor glanced at him, then smiled, suddenly and properly. "Sorry. Basically… it's a very advanced weapon – typical of the Lyorans." He shook his head. "They can't farm from themselves, but their weaponry is some of the most advanced in the Universe." His voice was disgusted. After a brief pause, he shook himself, and continued, "Anyway. Yes, long-range micro-energizer. It's designed to disintegrate your enemy's muscles from the inside." He shrugged. "Basically, it gives them so much energy that they overheat and die, destroying the muscle, and making it useless. Grinalem rebuilds the muscle." He looked at Alex. "I can't stop what the energizer's doing, but I can stop its effects. Sorry."

Alex nodded, and took a deep breath. He had no reason to trust that this man was telling the truth – certainly his leg looked undamaged, and for all Alex knew, the liquid in this bottle was poison… he'd never even _heard_ of this 'Grinalem', or whatever – but he did trust him, for some reason. It was just an instinct, one which Alex had learned to trust, during his time with MI6. It was rarely ever wrong.

So, rather warily, Alex took the top of the bottle, raised it to his lips, and took a couple of swigs. For a couple of moments, nothing happened – then, suddenly, his entire body jerked, as if he'd just been hit by a charge of electricity. For one nasty moment it sounded as though his heart was beating _out of synch with itself_, and he would have sworn that he'd been poisoned. Then it calmed down again. He didn't feel any different, but his leg was tingling, strangely. In an attempt to ignore the oddly-pervasive itch, he looked up at the Doctor, and said, quietly,

"Thanks."

The Doctor nodded, taking the bottle and the cap out of his hands, and putting it back in a box in one corner of the room.

Then, he came back to Alex, and sat on the step next to him, long legs folded next to his chest. Looking him carefully in the eye, the man said, quietly, "We need to talk."

* * *

Dun, dun DUUUNNNN!!

Well, maybe not. More a sort of... half-hearted fizzle? Like a cliff hanger, where the cliff is all of three feet tall.

Fnuh. No matter. Enjoy, and tune in next week for more fun and games with the Doctor!

(1) – shameless play on the drug 'tromazapan' – or however that's spelt – there. :D

lol!

-ami xxx


	3. Chapter 3

(grin) See!? Updates! Look, me, updating, lots of stuff! Aren't you proud of me?

This chapter is dedicated to **Von**, as always, for her amazing inspiration - and an amazing, wonderful, BEAUTIFUL AEC drabble, what she did for me - and also to anyone who reads this who does GCSEs. They are (nearly?) over now, right? I took mine last year, and hated every second of it, so, here. I hope you enjoy, and I'm sure you've all done brilliantly:D

Oh, and also to **Saynt Jimmy**, for the vote of confidence in this story. I'm a fanfiction writer. My self esteem levels are directly related to the amount of praise I get. (grin)

DISCLAIMER: Russell T. Davies wasn't too happy when I wanted to buy Dr. Who, Anthony Horowitz was far from chuffed when I asked about buying Alex Rider rights, and David Tennant was downright upset when I tried to buy him.

(smirk)

* * *

Alex looked at him silently for a few seconds, then said, finally. "Alright." He paused for a second. "I guess you've got questions for me… but if I'm answering your questions, you're going to answer some of mine."

For a moment, the Doctor looked amused – then he nodded, and said, gravely. "Deal."

Alex relaxed slightly, and shifted a little, sitting up straighter, and saying, firmly. "Right. What do you want to know?"

The Doctor thought for a few seconds, then said, slowly, "It's – 2007, right?" Alex nodded, startled. "Right. Good…" he paused. "And, where do you live, Alex?"

He stared at him, the said, rather warily. "Chelsea. Why?"

"Chelsea… that's in London, right?"

"Ye-es…?" Alex nodded, giving the man a rather worried look.

"Ok." The Doctor ignored his silent question, and asked another of his own. "What does your father do? Or your mother? What are their jobs?"

Alex hadn't been expecting that – and though he remembered his cover story perfectly, he had a feeling that it wouldn't fool this Doctor for a second. Finally, he just said, cautiously, "Why?"

The Doctor frowned slightly. "Look, Alex." He said, eventually. "The Lyorans – I've got no way of dealing with them. It's just me on my own here, no back up, nothing – and the TARDIS is unique, but she's not a battle ship. There's…" he bit his lip. "Alex, you're just going to have to believe me here, but, there are people on Earth who know about aliens, and…" he shook his head. "I don't trust them. But, I think we're going to need them, if we're to have any hope of getting rid of the Lyorans, alright? And, if you send an email that's urgent enough, or that involves enough key words, to someone who's high up enough in the government, then this organisation, Torchwood, is going to pick it up, and we can maybe manipulate them into dealing with them." He shrugged. "So, I need to know what jobs your parents do, and whether they can help us."

Alex frowned. "No, they can't."

"Why, what do they do?"

"Not much." He replied, shortly.

"Alex, I haven't got time to waste playing some sort of teenage game…" The Doctor said, frustrated.

"They're dead." He snapped. "My entire family is dead."

For a second, there was a horrible, awkward silence. Finally, the Doctor said, quietly. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright." He shrugged, shifting away from the man slightly. "Sorry for snapping at you."

"I shouldn't have pressed the issue…"

"No, you shouldn't." Alex agreed, bluntly. "But, you didn't know." He paused, then said, reluctantly. "Is there really nothing you can do without calling these people in?"

The Doctor dragged a hand over his face, tiredly. "No. Nothing. Well… There are a couple of things I can do, but nothing that will stop them. Just delay their plans a bit."

"Well…" Alex played absently with the hole in his jeans, biting his lip, and thinking it over. "I've got one way of dealing with it."

The Doctor looked at him. "What? I thought your parents were dead?"

"It doesn't involve my parents." Alex said, rather waspishly. "Other people can come up with solutions, you know."

"Humans seem to like leaving things to me." The Doctor shrugged.

"What do you mean, 'humans', anyway?" Alex asked, frowning. "I mean, this place – the tardis, or whatever – what is it? What _are_ you?" The man sighed. "You're an alien, right?"

"Yes." He agreed, flatly.

"So, good alien, or bad alien?"

"What do you think?" he asked, rather irritated.

"I don't know." Alex retorted. "Right now, I'd say you're good, but people around me, alien or not, tend to switch from being good to bad in the blink of an eye, so I'm not going to make any snap judgements here." He took a deep breath. "Look. Your – species. Are they good or bad, or at least half-good?"

The Doctor looked away, but not before Alex saw a trace of grief in his expression. "They were good." He said, very quietly. "They kept the universe – in order." He shrugged.

"Where are they now?" Alex asked, carefully.

"Much the same place as your parents, I would imagine." The Doctor stood, and headed back to the consul.

"I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault." The Doctor shrugged.

"Right." Alex nodded, uncomfortably. "So – what were they?" The man frowned at him. "Your species, I mean. What are you?"

"I'm a Time Lord." He told him, glancing down at the machine. "The last of them." Then he smiled, suddenly, and his rather melancholy mood was gone as quickly as it came. "Right. So, what was this solution that you mentioned?"

Alex shrugged. "Can I trust you?"

The Doctor frowned again. "I suppose so."

"Because…" he looked away. "I can, supposedly, get in touch with the Deputy Head of MI6; would Torchwood pick up that sort of an email?"

The Doctor gaped at him for a couple of seconds. "Um…" he cleared his throat, then said, voice still faintly surprised. "Um – well, yes, I suppose so. How – how can you do that?"

Alex kept his eyes firmly on the floor. "I work for them."

"Oh." The Doctor thought that over for a second. "Right. How do you get in touch with them, then?"

Alex stood, and fished in his pocket, pulling out a rather battered old iPod. "There's a communication device in there. If I press – Fast Forward, or something, it goes straight to the Deputy Head."

The Time Lord came towards him, and took the thing out of his hands, examining it carefully. "Fascinating." He said, quietly. Then, he looked back up at Alex. "D'you mind not mentioning me in your – report? Because…" he shrugged. "I'm not keen on the idea of getting mixed up with Torchwood again."

"When were you messed up with them before?" Alex asked, but the Doctor ignored him. Finally, he handed the iPod back to him, and said, lightly,

"So – how come you're working for MI6?"

Alex shrugged, beginning to fiddle with the specially doctored iPod, remembering how to create a message on the damn thing. As he wrote, he said, absently, "I work for them."

"Aren't you a bit – well, young?" The Doctor asked, sitting himself down next to him, and watching over his shoulder as he wrote the message, painstakingly flicking through each letter on the wheel, as he tried to make the words properly.

"They got me young." Alex said, ironically, allowing the man to see what he'd written so far.

"Just, shove in a whole load of words like, 'aliens', 'different humanoid species', 'amazingly advanced technology'…" The Doctor shrugged. He paused. "So, what – did MI6 just turn up on your last day of school waving a contract at you?"

Alex stared at him; how old did this man think he was, anyway? Finally, he just said, quietly. "Yeah, something like that." For a few minutes, there was silence, until Alex handed over the iPod, so the Doctor could check what he'd written. "What makes you think this organisation – Torchwood, or whatever – is going to go for this?" he asked, finally.

"You're just going to have to trust me." The Doctor said, quietly. At Alex's glare, he sighed, and elaborated, "Look, Torchwood goes on the principle of – if I remember rightly – 'if it's alien, it's ours'. It's the technology more than anything else that'll draw them in." he shook his head. "You humans. No respect for anyone – you can be almost as arrogant as the Lyorans."

"You're judging on a pretty select minority there." Alex returned, half-heartedly sharp. "We're not all bad."

"I suppose not." The Doctor stood, and paced a bit. After a pause, during which Alex sent the message off, and hoped for the best, the Doctor said, quietly, "The problem is… even Torchwood doesn't have the technology to deal with the Lyorans' robots. They'll just get slaughtered."

Alex looked up at him, sharply. "If that's the case, then I'm going to cancel that message to Mrs. Jones. I'm not helping anyone create a slaughter."

The Doctor didn't even look at him. "I understand that." He nodded. "And – there is one way…" He looked off into the distance, obviously thinking it through. "But – we'd have to go back there."

Alex nodded, steeling himself. "OK – but why?"

"Lyoran technology means that those robots are being controlled from a central control – most likely that ship of theirs." He paused. "If we can destroy the transmitter, then the robots will be useless; that's where they get their energy from, and their orders. Without them, they'll just collapse, and Torchwood will have some nice new, totally useless technology; and, they're free to deal with the much-more-mortal Lyorans themselves."

"So, basically, we go back to the base, and blow up the central transmitter?" Alex clarified, slowly.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, pretty much." He grinned, cheerfully. "But, first, we get to wait until Torchwood show up; we should have a couple of hours, at least – and I think you could do with getting some sleep. Even with the energy pills, regrowing your muscles can really take it out of you."

Alex raised an eyebrow at the man. "You're telling me to go have a nap?" he said, a faint hint of incredulity in his voice.

The Doctor paused. "…yeah, that's about it." He agreed. "I'll show you to a room."

Shaking his head in disbelief, he got to his feet, and immediately almost fell back down again. The Doctor caught him, and held him upright, saying, with a sympathetic grin, "Sorry. Should have warned you – those pills will stop you feeling any pain, but your leg is still weak. Here, I'll help you."

Slowly – horribly slowly – the Doctor helped Alex through the corridors to what the man assured him was a bedroom. By the time they got to one of the rooms, Alex was sweating and frustrated.

"And you're sure that I'll be alright after a few hours?" he got out, through gritted teeth.

The Doctor nodded, firmly. "It's best to sleep through it." He said, with conviction. "I'll come and get you when it's time."

Alex nodded, and the Doctor left him inside the bedroom.

* * *

It looked ordinary; the floor was, in contrast to what he'd seen so far, panelled, and there was a bed, a chest of drawers, bedside table, even a desk and a wardrobe. Alex flopped down onto the bed – his leg seemed to give a sigh of relief at no longer being required to hold him up – and dragged a hand over his face. Today had been difficult, to say the least; he was suddenly having to readjust his entire worldview, and it wasn't pleasant. In fact, he wanted nothing more to go to bed, and sleep for a bit. Hopefully, that would help him clear his head – it had been at least two days since he last slept properly, as he'd spent last night exploring the Lyorans base, and he'd spent all of today running around with the Doctor.

In fact, sleep was the best thing for him. It'd help him get a perspective – and at least by the time he woke up, he hopefully wouldn't have to worry about his leg.

With a long, slow sigh, he pulled back the duvet, curled up under it, and went to sleep.

* * *

In the consul room, the Doctor fiddled with the iPod the strange boy had left behind, and thought.

He was – different, there was no other way of looking at it. His approach to danger and pain and aliens, his reaction to them, was different to almost any other human the Doctor had ever met. He didn't instinctively assume that all aliens were bad, which was novel – here, the Doctor suppressed a sudden grin that the boy had thought of asking _him_ whether he was 'good or bad' – and he was almost like… well. He was a little like a younger Captain Jack Harkness in his approach to adventures and pain; detached, intelligent, objective… but then, maybe that was to be expected. Jack Harkness had, after all, worked for the Time Agency at one point, an organisation which had a lot in common with MI6, but was just a little more advanced, technology wise.

On the other hand, though, this kid was quieter, less immediately trusting, and harder to read than Captain Jack had been. Certainly, he was interesting.

The iPod squawked, shuddering in his hand, and instinctively, he pressed the button at the centre of the wheel, causing the new "message" received to appear on the little screen.

_Back up coming. Should__ arrive in an hour. Stand down._

The Doctor frowned – they were going to arrive far more quickly than he had expected – then shrugged, and headed over to the TARDIS consul, where he began to try and get an accurate reading of the Lyorans' base, and to hone in on the signal sent out by the central control for the robots. More than anything, they needed to sabotage that, or they really would be party to a slaughter.

He settled down in front of the mainframe, and began to search.

* * *

Exactly an hour later, the iPod squawked again.

_Back up in position. About to advance. Stood down?_

Frowning, the Doctor attempted to write a message back. It took him several tries to work out how the machine worked, but a little wait wouldn't hurt them; quickly, he wrote back:

_These are aliens. What are you going to do?_

Instead of a proper response, he simply got the same message back. _Back up in position. About to advance. Stood down?_

With a low-muttered expletive, the Doctor sent back a terse, _'Yes_', and headed to the room where he'd left to boy to sleep.

Alex was shaken awake however-many-hours after he'd first gone to sleep, and found the Doctor standing over him, face serious.

He swung his legs out of the bed, though he took a moment to be disappointed that it wasn't all some dream – Lyorans, and aliens, and off-world technology, even the Doctor himself. As it was, though, he reflected, as he bent down to pull his shoes back on, since it wasn't a dream, he had a job to do.

"We on?" he asked, laconically, throat gummed with sleep.

"We're on." The Doctor agreed, and strode from the cabin, quite obviously preoccupied. Alex followed him, pleased that his leg would now take his weight. It still felt a little like cooked spaghetti, but it would do for the moment.

Alex followed the Doctor back to the main room of the TARDIS, where the Doctor looked at him, seriously, and said, quietly, "Like I said, Alex, we're going to have to go back into the Lyorans' base; I've tracked down the signal of the central transmitter for the robots, and we have to destroy that…"

Alex nodded, impatiently. "OK, yes." He frowned, heading for the door. "So, what are you waiting fo…" he stepped outside, expecting to find himself outside a base somewhere, or a slightly-strange-looking house.

He saw the forest in front of him, and turned back to the Doctor – only to be confronted with a tiny blue box, a phone box of some sort. Through the doors, he could see the same huge space that he'd just been in.

Alex couldn't help it that he blanched, gasping suddenly for breath. "Oh my god." He breathed, slowly. "That's… shit, that's _impossible_…"

"Get back in here!" The Doctor called, sounding impatient and rather annoyed. "We haven't got time for this!"

Swallowing his total shock, Alex forced his legs to move, and he stepped back inside – but didn't close the door. "We need to get back to that base of theirs." He protested, but he knew that his voice wasn't all that strong. "We can't – I mean, we've got to start walking there, or running there, or whatever…"

The Doctor shook his head, expression softening a little. "Shut the door." He ordered. Frowning, Alex went to protest, but the Doctor just said, calmly, "Alex. Shut the doors, alright? Trust me."

"It'd be a hell of a lot easier to trust you if you'd tell me what the hell was going on. Properly, I mean, not just what you think I 'need to know'." Alex muttered, but did as he was told.

The Doctor was fiddling with things on the main central desk of the room, which Alex had earlier assumed was some sort of weird, ultra-advanced computer, and ignored him. Finally the man – or Time Lord, whichever – looked up at him, and grinned. "I'd hold on to something." He advised, then pulled a lever.

Over the sudden whirring noise, the Doctor yelled, "This is the TARDIS – she's my ship, space ship, time ship, whatever – that's why we don't need to walk!"

Breathless, Alex just nodded. Finally, as the juddering started to slow down, he said, by way of a reply, "When this is over, you've got some explaining to do."

The Doctor just nodded, passing him and heading out the door towards – something. Rather reluctantly, Alex followed him; he didn't know that he wanted to know for certain that this – _box­_ – could actually travel, or fly.

He managed to force down his shock on seeing that they had, in all truthfulness, reappeared somewhere completely different. The Doctor beckoned impatiently at him, and Alex hurried to join him.

They were in the main room – the Doctor had claimed it was their ship, Alex remembered – that they had found themselves in after the Lyorans had caught them, earlier, but it was deserted now, except for two of the aliens, who had apparently been left as guards of some sort. Apparently – though Alex had no way of knowing this – the hum of the ship's internal machinery covered the noise made by the TARDIS materialising. The Doctor turned to look at Alex, and whispered, quickly,

"I think that, over there," surreptitiously, he pointed over at a tall cylindrical object, right in the centre of the room, "Is the transmitter. But, we've got to distract those two guards somehow." he bit his lip, obviously thinking it through.

"I could provide a distraction…" Alex suggested, rather tentatively.

"They'd kill you." The Doctor said, flatly. "Look, we just need to be able to get them out of the room for long enough to destroy the transmitter…"

Alex paused, then said, diffidently, "How were you planning on destroying the transmitter?" he didn't wait for an answer before rushing on, voice low. "Because that iPod can be made into a bomb, would that work on it?"

Slowly, the Doctor nodded. "I don't see why not… why, what are you thinking?"

"Well – I can't fly that… thing, of yours, right?" Alex said, quickly. "But you can, so you can get out of here, and create some sort of distraction, and still be safe – right?" The Doctor nodded again, frowning as he followed Alex's logic. "So, you go out, and create a distraction, hopefully those two will follow you, and I can blow up the transmitter." He looked at the man – Time Lord – quickly, for approval, but was already sneaking the iPod out of his pocket.

"Alriiight…" The Doctor agreed, rather doubtfully. "But, what if they don't take the bait?"

Alex shrugged. "Then, they don't. Hopefully, the explosion will throw them for a bit, and, so long as you come back quickly, I should be alright…?"

The Doctor paused, thinking, for a couple more seconds – then came to a decision. "Yes." He agreed, and, letting his hand fall onto Alex's shoulder for a couple of seconds in a quick gesture of support, headed back to the TARDIS. Alex watched, still hidden, as the box disappeared, then waited.

* * *

About a minute later, there was a huge crash – almost sounding like an explosion itself – outside. After a brief conference, one of the Lyorans started towards the door – Alex groaned as the other stayed where it was.

Gritting his teeth, he crept towards the main transmitter anyway. He couldn't afford not to do this; the robots had to be nullified, or the soldiers Torchwood, or MI6, had provided would be killed, and this attempt would be totally useless.

It took longer than he'd hoped to get to the actual transmitter, and the alien by the door kept glancing around, lazily. Alex just thanked God – repeatedly – that the room was so cluttered; it was easy to hide. Finally, he reached the transmitter… then paused. Where the hell could he put the iPod? It had nowhere for him to attach it, or leave it so that it would definitely destroy the damn thing. Rather reluctantly, he tweaked the iPod settings so that the machine would explode, then, quickly and carefully, set it on the only obvious place – a small ledge, covered in weird symbols which seemed to be some sort of keyboard. It was a tenuous position, at the most, but it was the best he could do.

Then, abandoning caution, he legged it across the room. The single Lyoran left saw him, and headed towards him with a menacing shout – Alex twisted, hoping that the damn thing would go off soon, and saw the alien coming towards him at a truly frightening speed. It was nearly right on top of him, so Alex did the only thing he could think of – he turned, twisted his leg up, and lashed out in a side kick, as hard as he could. The creature when flying backwards, but his still-healing leg screamed with the effort, and Alex collapsed with a grunt of pain.

Then the transmitter exploded. The Lyoran – which had got up in the mean time, and started back towards him, it's expression (as far as Alex could tell) murderous – was distracted, and turned to face the now-crippled transmitter. The little 'bomb' had blown away half the mid-section, and the thing had crumpled in half, blackened, some of the wires still smouldering. The Lyoran looked back at him, mouth twisted into a snarl, revealing sharp teeth…

… and then the TARDIS rematerialised.

Alex dragged himself up on the nearest thing – a chair, as it happened – and hobbled towards it; the Doctor opened the door for him, dragged him through, and slammed it shut, just as the alien reached them.

Alex collapsed again, panting.

"Is…" he took a deep breath. "…Is it – safe?"

The Doctor looked at him, and frowned, worriedly. "Are you alright?" he asked, rather than answering the question.

"Leg." Alex said, shortly, and the Doctor bit his lip.

"Ah. I forgot about that. Sorry…" he thought for a second. "I'll take you to a hospital, they can deal with it."

"I think I'd have trouble explaining to a hospital that I was hit with an alien weapon that doesn't exist on Earth, don't you?" Alex said, sarcastically, his face scrunching up in pain as he attempted to pull himself upright on one of the weird tree-like things around the edges of the consul room.

The Doctor grinned, fiddling once more with the consul, apparently setting coordinates of some sort. "Who said it had to be a hospital on Earth? Or, indeed…" he flicked a switch, and the 'ship' started to hum, a sound which, Alex was beginning to realise, signalled that it was moving. "In this time?"

Alex stared at him. "You wouldn't…"

"Wouldn't I?" He grinned.

* * *

And, folks, there you have it. Hope you liked!

lol, ami. xxx


	4. Chapter 4

No, don't have that heart-attack just yet! This story is now officially OFF HIATUS, because... well... it's my baby. Seriously. As much fun as I have writing all my other ones, this fic holds a special place in my heart, which no other can replace.

So, how is everyone? I hope everything's going swimmingly for everybody. Since we are to be essentially deprived of Doctor WHo for 2009 - which RUINED my gap year, I'll have y'all know - I, in desperation, wrote another chapter of this story. I doubt it will help anyone else, but it soothed the wound for me just a little.

On the other hand, we have - le gasp - 'Merlin' instead! I know all the reasons I should hate it, really I do. I grew up reading and re-reading the Arthurian legends, I can tell you the tales of each knight, Bedivere, Launcelot, Gawain, Galahad... all of them. And I know that this TV show, with all it's bastardization and re-telling, should be loathed and hated. And for all that... I really like it. It helps that the slash potential is pretty darn high. (grin)

OK, I'm done trying to be witty and amusing. I promise. Here, have a chapter of a long abandoned, though much loved, story!

DISCLAIMER: The list of what I own is very short, and it doesn't include either 'Doctor Who', or 'Alex Rider'.

* * *

_The Doctor looked at him, and frowned, worriedly. "Are you alright?" he asked, rather than answering the question._

_"Leg." Alex said, shortly, and the Doctor bit his lip._

_"Ah. I forgot about that. Sorry…" he thought for a second. "I'll take you to a hospital, they can deal with it."_

_"I think I'd have trouble explaining to a hospital that I was hit with an alien weapon that doesn't exist on Earth, don't you?" Alex said, sarcastically, his face scrunching up in pain as he attempted to pull himself upright on one of the weird tree-like things around the edges of the consul room._

_The Doctor grinned, fiddling once more with the consul, apparently setting coordinates of some sort. "Who said it had to be a hospital on Earth? Or, indeed…" he flicked a switch, and the 'ship' started to hum, a sound which, Alex was beginning to realise, signalled that it was moving. "In this time?"_

_Alex stared at him. "You wouldn't…"_

_"Wouldn't I?" He grinned._

* * *

Alex stared at him for a couple of moments, contemplating his options – which, he conceded, were limited at best. He could hardly stop the man – Time Lord, alien, whatever – from doing whatever he want, so he supposed the best thing to do was to give in gracefully.

"Can we get back?" he shouted to the Doctor, over the noise of the machine starting up. "If we go – wherever it is you're taking us?"

The Doctor grinned. "'Course. I wouldn't strand you in a different time zone!"

"Oh." Alex tried to feel reassured by this, but somehow failed. "Wait, we're actually going to a different time?"

"Yeah… just forward a bit, you'll need the technology."

Alex nodded, distractedly, the pain in his leg growing every second. It felt like his thigh was being torn apart, or melting. "I thought that stuff you gave me was supposed to deal with this!"

The Doctor glanced at him, before looking back at the consul, and flicking a switch, before gently twisting a weird green ball. "It would have, but you must have strained it somehow; with the damage already done, it's created too much damage for the Grinalem to deal with. You've sped up the energy in the cells, somehow or other… maybe even just by walking around. I should have waited." He looked a little guilty. "Sometimes even I forget that the TARDIS is a Time Machine; we could have waited a couple of hours, for you to mend. Sorry."

Alex shrugged it off, only half paying attention to the man's speech. Between the overwhelming pain in his leg, and concepts he only barely half-understood, he hadn't taken in much.

There was a clunk, and Alex jerked forwards, biting back the half-scream of pain as his damaged muscle spasmed, while the Doctor just rocked on the balls of his feet, giving him another apologetic look. "C'mon." was all he said, though, making his way over to Alex. "We're here."

Alex took a ginger step forward, and fell as his leg gave way underneath him. The Doctor hooked an arm round his waist, hoisting him up and helping him forwards, half carrying him at times.

"This is so embarrassing." Alex muttered, just catching the Doctor's grin out of the corner of his eye.

"You humans." He grinned. "All the same. So image conscious."

Alex frowned. "No we're not." He answered, a little petulantly.

"As you say." The Doctor agreed, maddeningly calm. Alex fought down the desire to throw something at him.

They walked – or, in Alex's case, limped heavily – on for a couple of seconds in silence, Alex having decided not to bother trying to come up with a reply. Finally, the Doctor started up again,

"You doing OK?"

Alex nodded, teeth gritted. "Alright." He managed to get out, jaw clenched against the pain. "Thanks."

"We're nearly there…"

They turned the corner, and a huge, glistening white building appeared in front of them, all white marble and shining glass.

"Best hospital in the Asranian galaxy." The Doctor said, without slowing; apparently he could walk and preach. "Invented the cure for interspecial cancer here; violent non-remitting MS, too…and…"

"Wait." Alex said, slowly, breath coming in gasps, his leg feeling like it was literally on fire. "We're not on Earth anymore?"

"Nope." The Doctor said, cheerfully. "Earth won't have this sort of technology for maybe five hundred years yet. If then. And I wanted to make it a quick trip."

"Looks like Earth, though." Alex managed, and the Doctor nodded.

"Yeah; there was a big humanist movement, for a while, once Earth became a major planet in universal trade."

Alex nodded, teeth still gritted, but he was beginning – just – to get a grip on the pain. "So – when are we?" he shook his head. "God, that sounds weird."

The Doctor chuckled a little. "Oh, about… year 5172?"

Alex sighed a little. "Oh, fantastic, I've only to wait a few thousand years for humans to start listening to me when I talk about aliens, then."

The Doctor actually grinned at that. "Nah – 5172 to 5175 is probably about the height of the humanist movement. You lot have been in the general universal community – well, locally anyway – for at least a millennium by then."

"Fuckin' hell." Alex said, with perhaps more honesty of reaction than politeness.

The Doctor let it go, though, passing thought the enormous glass doors which formed the main entrance to the hospital – without them opening.

"Flexi-Glass. Keeps general germs out." The Doctor explained, when Alex stared over his shoulder at them, nearly tripping over his own feet as he did so, and biting back a whimper at the near-unbearable shoot of pain it caused in his thigh. "No Super Bug is allowed here, not after the outbreak they had in 4111; decimated the entire population. Worst case of Super Bug in the Universe…"

Alex hadn't been listening, staring around the hospital, which had either been built by an architect with delusions of grandeur, or was simply like this because all hospitals in wherever-they-were-now were built along palatial lines. "Wow." He breathed, rather dazedly.

The Doctor, still practically carrying him, grinned. "Quite."

He headed over to the main desk, helping Alex along with him, and gave the woman behind it – at least, Alex assumed it was female, since it was wearing a dress of some kind – a wide smile. Apparently, he wasn't the slightest bit put off by her electric blue skin.

"Hi. Um, victim of a micro-energizer?"

She gave him a surprised look, purple eyes widening. "You?"

"Oh, no, no no no no!!" he shook his head, vigorously, and gestured at Alex, careful to keep his supporting arm around the boy's shoulders. "Not me. Him. Sorry. His name's Alex."

"What am I, your pet?" Alex muttered, but only the Doctor heard.

The blue woman gave Alex a warm smile; somehow, in the light of that smile, Alex could forget the purple eyes and hair, and the blue skin. She was just someone who was going to help him, and, recently, people like that had been few and far between. "How on Old Earth did you manage that?" Alex shifted uncomfortably, and winced, and the receptionist must have realised that no answer was going to be forthcoming, as her smile became a little ruefully. "Sorry. Pretty serious, then…"

Alex offered her a tight smile in return. "I think so. I mean, it hurts."

She smiled again. "I'll bet. Right: head up to floor 18 – the lift's just on the left there – and go to Room 23. Adixena will help you out." She turned her warm smile back to the Doctor. "Your Dad can go with you."

The Doctor choked a little on that.

"Adixena." Alex repeated. "Floor 18, Room 23. Got you, thanks. C'mon – _Dad_."

For once speechless – Alex had only known the alien for a few hours (or was it several thousand years?), and he had already worked out that he was rarely silent – the Doctor helped him over to the lift.

* * *

Adixena was a tall, bean-pole-thin woman – if the term 'woman' was even applied to non-humans – with jewel-red skin, bright grey eyes, and a wide, friendly smile. Her blue doctor's coat hung on her thin frame, cheerfully dishevelled; she put Alex at his ease almost immediately.

"You must be Alex." She said, with the same wide grin. "Yareva from reception called up to tell me that you were coming. Quaint name, by the way – this Old Earth movement. Very quaint."

The Doctor grinned. "Isn't it just?"

Alex paused, unsure of what reaction to give. "Um – thank you?"

She just smiled in response. "Right – so, before we get started, any illnesses or allergies? Any major medical issues we should know of?"

Alex paused. "Well… I've been shot?"

The Doctor grinned, but Adixena simply raised an eyebrow at him, her smile taking on the tinge of a tried parent. "OK, Alex." She nodded. "We'll get down to business. You've been hit by an ME?" Alex nodded. "How did you manage that?" it was obviously a rhetorical question, where the receptionist's had not been, and she carried right on, without waiting for a reply. A clipboard appeared miraculously in one of her hands – Alex wondered, rather illogically, whether they had invented magic this far in the future. "Well, we'll be able to fix that, I'm sure. So, I just need a few details – second name?"

"Rider. Alex Rider."

"Lovely. We'll get your age group from the cell sample we take from you – so, species?"

"Human." Alex said, frowning a little. He'd thought, from all the talk of 'Old Earth movements', she'd already known that he was human. Certainly, it didn't seem to have come as a surprise to her.

She smiled, nodded, and jotted it down on her clipboard, before looking at him, expectantly. "Sub-species?" He gave her a blank look. "Which strain of human are you?"

The Doctor took that one. "Oh, he's pure." He said, rather hurriedly. "Pure human. Top secret. Very rare."

Alex glanced at him, but looked back at the nurse almost immediately, nodding, and risking a rather awkward smile.

She smiled back at him, but her eyes were a little awed. "Right – well, we'd better be careful with you, then, I suppose! How on Old Earth did they manage to…" she shook her head, and paled a little, which Alex supposed must be a bright red person's version of a blush. "I'm sorry. It will be simple enough for us to sort out the problem, though it might take a couple of days."

The Doctor smiled at that. "Trust me. Time is no object."

Adixena looked at him. "That's not one I've heard before." She said, slowly, but shrugged, turning back to Alex. "Well, let's have a look at your leg then. How long ago did it happen?"

Alex shrugged. "About three thousand years ago." He told her, dead-pan.

She frowned, confused. "I'm sorry?"

"A couple of hours ago." The Doctor intervened, quickly, shooting Alex a half-warning, half-amused look.

The glance Adixena gave the Doctor was far easier to read, pure disapproval. "Why didn't you bring him in earlier?"

The Doctor's returning look was flat. "An energizer is a weapon. Why do you think we didn't turn up earlier?"

She paled again, embarrassed. "Oh, of course. I'm sorry." She managed to hold his gaze for just a few seconds, before turning back to Alex. "So, I'm going to take a cell sample, then do a scan done of your leg, alright? Once we've got that done, we'll know what action we can take."

The cell sample was easy enough, for all that it sounded nasty; Adixena produced a syringe, thin and shiny and sterile, cleaned a small section of Alex's upper arm, and explained the process as she went through it.

"The syringe is a vacuum at the moment," She told him, calmly, as she poured out something which smelled antiseptic and smoked slightly as it hit the gauze pad, "So you don't get any air bubbles in your blood. As I take the cells, the gases in your blood will – 'aerate' it, and the cells will be allowed in. Brilliant little invention, very useful." She dabbed at his arm with the gauze, "Just taking some extra precautions with you." She flashed him that same wide smile, and despite some lingering misgivings, Alex felt himself relax. When she took the sample, it didn't hurt in the slightest.

Alex was expecting a huge fuss to be made over the scan – to be transported to some other room with a massive scanner and about three technicians to deal with it – but Adixena simply placed his sample on another machine Alex didn't recognise, and turned back with a hand-held machine, and proceeded to scan his leg.

It beeped a couple of times; she frowned; Alex waited.

After a few minutes, during which Adixena programmed the information from both his sample and the little scanner into some kind of computer, he spoke up. "Is that it?"

"Hmm?"

"Is it over? I mean, is that – it?"

The Doctor, in the background, grinned. Adixena offered Alex a pale version of her usual smile, tinged with a little worry.

"Well, that's the scan and cell sample dealt with." She told him, quietly. "But – I've never seen such a young ME victim…"

The Doctor lost his smile, a faint line of worry appearing on his forehead. "What do you mean, so young?"

She looked at him. "Well, after all the regulations on the legal age to join up, I haven't seen an ME victim under thirty for about a decade. Your Alex," Alex grimaced, "Is much younger than that."

The Doctor relaxed. "Oh! Yes, he's younger than that. He's just… it was – crossfire. We got caught in some crossfire."

"What was he doing out anyway?" she asked, suspiciously. "If he's a pure human? Surely he should be better protected?"

The Doctor just shrugged. "He's a sentient being. He's got a right to a life outside a laboratory."

She sighed. "Of course, but… children shouldn't be in situations where they can get caught in crossfire."

Alex wholeheartedly agreed, but the Doctor just nodded, rather tersely, and Adixena – probably recognising that she wasn't going to get any real answers – let the subject drop.

* * *

After all the pain, and all the preparation which went into it, Alex was a little surprised at how easy it was to fix his 'wound'. Adixena had been a little wary, unsure as to how to treat him, but the Doctor – passing himself off as one of Alex's 'carers' (Alex made a mental note to do something painful and lasting to the man. Time Lord. Whichever.) – carefully guided her through what could and couldn't be given to such a rare species as Alex.

It was strangely difficult to get used to thinking of himself as a rare species, but he brushed it off. After all, likelihood was he was only going to get to do this once, so he had better things to concentrate on – and anyway, he'd be back in 'normal' circumstances soon enough.

Then he thought of MI6, and suddenly that thought was far from reassuring.

Adixena was reassuringly no-nonsense about the whole thing, however, hooking him up to what she told him was a 'cell wash', which the Doctor explained basically swapped the damaged cells for new ones, explaining that the cell sample they'd taken generated the new cells which they needed.

The Doctor prattled throughout the wash, which took about an hour and a half, though Adixena left, promising to be back when it was done, to check it had gone to plan. After a while, Alex listened to him with less than half an ear, more interested in the sensations in his leg; he had been warned that it would feel 'a little funny', but when he concentrated on it, it felt more like his muscles were trying to mutate, twisting and oozing strangely under his skin, than were simply being exchanged – albeit on a cellular level.

Shrugging, he shook off the thought, and concentrated back on the Doctor.

"…said, 'hospitals need a shop, not a big one, just a shop', wonder if they've got one here? D'you fancy checking it out when we're all done here?"

Alex nodded. "Sounds good. Don't s'pose I can buy anything, though, I don't want to muck up the timeline, or anything."

The Doctor opened his mouth, then shut it again, firmly. "Y'know, I think you're the first human who's ever come up with that spontaneously." He said, slowly, then shook it off. "Oh, well. Shop!" This last was addressed to Adixena, who had reappeared in the doorway. "Have you got a shop here?"

She blinked, momentarily taken aback, before nodding. "Yes, it's on the third floor… why, is there something you need?"

"No, no, it's just – well, every hospital should have a shop." He shrugged eloquently. "Retail therapy, huge help to some people in times of crisis."

The red-skinned woman's lips twitched suspiciously. "I didn't peg you for a shopaholic, sir." She told him, calmly, moving over to her patient, and checking the cell wash.

"Me?" The Doctor actually looked surprised. "No! No, I just – I had…this friend. Her mum…" he broke off. "Some people like it. Takes their mind off things."

Adixena, once again recognising a sensitive subject, backed off, saying simply, "I believe there's a shop on the third floor, sir." With that, she turned back to Alex and looked over what seemed to be an electronic version of a patient's chart. She touched the screen – the thing whistled cheerfully at her, and Alex jumped. The Doctor grinned.

"You're all better, apparently." She smiled at him, but there was a faint question, a hint of worry, as she looked at him. "Your muscle is a little hotter than I would have expected, given what seems to be your average temperature," Almost any other situation, and Alex would probably have cracked a smile over his 'hot muscle', "But oh, well." She shrugged. "Pure human; it's probably just normal for you. Compared to most people I see, your core temperature is positively glacial!" This time, it was the Doctor frowning a little, but Alex ignored it. His leg didn't hurt, and this seemed to be a permanent cure this time.

The Doctor disappeared as Adixena prattled through his 'follow up' treatment, taking out all the apparatus he had been attached to for the wash, giving him some painkillers and telling him how to care for his leg. By the time the man returned, Adixena had handed him a box of painkillers – "just in case!" – and given him a prescription for some additional medication, in the small chance of infection.

"So!" The Doctor grinned, brightly. "Are we all done here?"

Adixena nodded, pushing her hair back behind her ears. "I think so." She said, cheerfully, and gave Alex a smile. "You look after yourself, now! No more running around in warzones. You're a gift to science, and don't you forget it!"

* * *

Alex managed to keep a straight face – and not to ask what the hell the Doctor had in the bag he had brought back from the shop – all the way down to the lobby, where he couldn't quite stop the grin which spread across it.

"What?"

"Be careful how you speak to me, I'm a gift to science." Alex grinned at him, and the Doctor chuckled.

"Strange, isn't it, the things which become precious as time goes on? Your time, there are six billion other people built along the same genetic lines as you, three thousand years in the future, and you're one of a kind. Original iPods are an antique collectors _dream_ now! And you could flog the jeans you're wearing for a fortune, even though they're damaged…"

The Doctor chattered all the way back to the TARDIS, where he dutifully set the coordinates for Earth again. "Got to be careful about this, you know – once I promised to take a friend of mine back to Earth, and was an entire year out… they'd had a police hunt and everything!" he paused. "First time I've ever been slapped by someone's mother." He shuddered. "And I hope it'll be the last time, as well."

Alex, perched on one of the railings around the edge of the consol, simply nodded, more than a little distracted. "Here." He chucked the little bag containing his pills, and his prescription, to the Doctor. "Can't take them back to Earth with me, can I?"

The Doctor caught them, and nodded, soberly. "Course not. But – you'll be alright for painkillers?"

He flexed his leg experimentally, and nodded back. "I think so. If it gets bad, I'll take a Nurofen. Or nab some morphine from my local hospital, depending on how bad it gets."

The TARDIS was shuddering through what Alex now recognised as its take-off, and the Doctor handed him the little bag he'd returned with from the shop. "Got you that." He said, awkwardly. "Just thought you might like it. Y'know. To remind you."

"Of the time I got shot in the leg and had to be taken several thousand years into the future to get it healed?" Alex asked wryly, holding the bag a little gingerly.

The Doctor managed a rueful grin. "Um, yes." He scratched the back of his head. "I'm really not very good at this sort of thing, am I?"

Alex smiled back at him. "Not great, no." he shrugged. "Then again, no one's ever bought me a present from three thousand years in the future, so…"

"It doesn't look like it's from the future. I made sure it – didn't look like it was from the future." The Doctor hastened to reassure him, and Alex nodded, holding up the small plastic figure the Doctor had bought him.

"You bought me a figurine?" he asked, confused. The toy was about a handspan tall, wearing a long blue coat Alex recognised from all the World War Two films he had watched with Ian.

"Not just any figurine, though!" The Doctor said, looking affronted. "That's Nestene plastic, that is!" In response to Alex's raised-eyebrow look, he elaborated. "It has a mild consciousness of its own. Toys get given an extra shot of – something or other – and you can talk to them. Great for kids with working parents."

"So… I can have a conversation with this thing?" Alex asked, looking at it with increased respect.

"Um… no." the Doctor frowned. "Sorry. I disabled it. Didn't think it was a good idea."

"No, probably not." Alex agreed, and put it back in the bag before shoving it into a coat pocket.

The Doctor brightened a little. "Oh! But, best part of it is, I've met that guy!"

Alex looked up. "What?"

"The figurine. I met him. Made him what he is today." The smile slipped off his face. "Though I don't know that that's anything very much to boast of." He added, quietly, and Alex hastened to change the course of the conversation before either of them got morbid. God only knew it seemed like the pair of them had enough to be morbid about, between them.

"That's pretty cool." He said, quickly. "That you've met him, and all. When's he born?"

The Doctor looked up at him, and grinned, but Alex wasn't fooled for a moment by the happy look. "Oh, the fifty-first century." He said, lightly. "Captain Jack Harkness."

"Captain Harkness. I'll remember."

"He's a memorable sort of person."

They stood in awkward silence for a moment as the TARDIS spun them through the Vortex. Finally, Alex broke the silence. "Um, thanks, by the way. For the gift. People don't normally buy me gifts when I'm in hospital. And I wasn't even properly in hospital that time."

The Doctor looked a little sad at that, and for one horrible moment, Alex though the Time Lord was about to comment on it, but in the end, all he said was, "S'OK." The TARDIS jolted to a stop, presumably back where they had been before. "One sec, I'll just check that I got the coordinates right… yep, we're good to go." He looked up at Alex, and said, diffidently, "You know… you could come with me. For a bit. If you wanted...?"

* * *

And there it is. Hope you all enjoyed it - do please tell. (grins and scurries off to write her thrice-damned Personal Statement)

-amitai xxx


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